


Breaks In The Morning Light

by Nununununu



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canonical Character Death, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Haunting, Inspired by Music, M/M, Regret, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, ToT: Battle of the Bands, Trick or Treat: Trick, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26826526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: He sees Hamilton standing behind him; catches a glimpse of the man in his peripheral vision.
Relationships: Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Breaks In The Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LamiaCalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaCalls/gifts).



> A trick-variety of treat for Lamiacalls, who had awesome Hamilton prompts :)
> 
> Title from and influenced by 'All This And Heaven Too', by Florence + the Machine (found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yIuePXvgus)).
> 
> (Originally posted 31/10; re-dated for author reveals)

He hears the wailing in his head. It seeks to steal the breath from his lungs as he wakes; it steals the thoughts from his head and speech from his mouth.

There is a word to it – a word he sees inscribed on his skin like a wound sometimes. A lone word that’s left to him when the others are gone.

He sees Hamilton the same way, for the first time since –

_Since_. He sees Hamilton standing behind him; catches a glimpse of the man in his peripheral vision. Dressed in black. Watching him. When Burr stiffens and swings around, something clenching like a fist in his chest –

He’s gone.

It’s obviously a delusion. The blood he sees sometimes – on his hands, his face; Hamilton’s hands, his clothes – The blood is obviously a delusion too.

Is the word inscribed on inside of his wrist written there in blood too? _Whose_ blood?

He begins to hear the wailing inside his head during daylight hours too. He tastes the blood behind his teeth, the sour tang of it. He stares at his hands and cannot write. His tongue is thick; he cannot speak. He glances to the side and –

There is Hamilton again, all in black except for the bloodstained white of his shirt. Watching him.

_Wait_ – _!_

What is it? That word to the wailing; that word Hamilton whispers in a voice Burr can almost hear, although he never sees the man’s mouth move.

Of course he doesn’t see it. It’s merely an imagining. He has another drink. Tries to forget himself with soothing company of a more pleasant kind. He stumbles on undressing himself, hand seeking to wrap around the opposite wrist as if to conceal it.

There’s nothing there. Even if it increasingly looks like there is.

_Wait –_

Hamilton comes to be there when he wakes up. He has the definite impression the man is there during the long hours of the dark night too. Watching; still shouting – screaming – struggling to say that word.

Wait –

“I will write it,” The next morning Burr sits at his desk and stares back at where Hamilton stands in the corner of the room where the sunlight doesn’t reach. He casts no shadow, “Move my hand, direct me, _tell me what it is you want_.”

Hamilton says nothing. Burr is not conscious of his hand moving, but when he stares in desperation at the marking made by the ink, it is a senseless scribble.

When he yanks his sleeve up to bare his wrist, the word there is just as meaningless. The thought that it could be – that it could even have been something _positive_ before, had he not –

He’s heard the tales of _soulmates_ ; how could he not? He simply had never thought –

And now –

“ _No_ –” Guilt and horror claw at his throat.

_Wait_ – _!_

Burr can’t say it. Why _would_ Hamilton wait for him? The man never did in life.

Besides, he’s too late. He has _always_ been too late. As much as he might have denied it at the time, he was always just chasing after Hamilton’s shadow.

And it’s his fault. Nothing can absolve him of that.

So he doesn’t deserve that word. He doesn’t deserve these visitations. And after all this time and after what he did, after Hamilton’s _death_ , after _killing him_ , Burr definitely shouldn’t still feel this terrible, conflicted yearning.

The night that passes next is sleepless. When he finally succumbs near dawn only to startle awake with a jolt a fretful hour later, the ghost is gone.


End file.
